Developmental Social Welfare and the Child Protection Challenge in South Africa

Abstract

South Africa's child protective services are called on to address abnormally high levels of violence and other forms of maltreatment against children. These are fuelled by poverty and a ‘culture of violence’— the legacy of colonialism and apartheid — as well as the AIDS pandemic. These issues are being tackled in the context of a lack of sufficient resources and by services beset with internal difficulties. Many of these difficulties are inherited from the old order. Under that system child welfare, in addition to being thoroughly distorted by apartheid, had always been marginalised and under-resourced. But some of the present problems also arise from a lack of coherence in applying social welfare policy since 1994. The developmental social welfare approach has not been implemented in a coherent or consistent manner or with the resources required. Ill-considered use of developmental social welfare terminology and failure to recognise limitations of the model have undermined traditional forms of service delivery which continue to be urgently required. This article explores some of the ways in which child protective services have been affected by these developments, and some of the challenges and opportunities facing these services and the broader social welfare sector.